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Environment committee  Thank you for inviting me to testify. I am a Canadian citizen and a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. I'm very active in the Wildlife Society, which is the professional organization to which most wildlife biologists belong. My position at the University of Alberta was end

March 31st, 2015Committee meeting

Professor Mark Boyce

Environment committee  Certainly habitat loss is the biggest assault that we're having on wildlife and fish populations throughout North America. I think that every conservation group recognizes that. That's the continuing battle to ensure that we have lands managed for wildlife. That doesn't necessari

March 31st, 2015Committee meeting

Prof. Mark Boyce

Environment committee  Yes. I would add to those comments that in addition to agriculture, and especially in Alberta, industrial development is having very substantial consequences for habitat loss. There are a number of things that can be done. One is a conservation offset program where when land i

March 31st, 2015Committee meeting

Prof. Mark Boyce

Environment committee  I have a comment directly in response to that. Certainly, permanent grassland cover is a very important mechanism to reduce flooding. There are programs, and in fact Ducks Unlimited has a struggling program on carbon investments. Grasslands are extremely effective at storing car

March 31st, 2015Committee meeting

Prof. Mark Boyce

Environment committee  As a research biologist, I'm always going to suggest that there is greater need for research. But I think that, on the more practical side, we often don't know how to make the right management decisions. We don't know what is the most strategic way to achieve, for example, reduce

March 31st, 2015Committee meeting

Prof. Mark Boyce

Environment committee  We've done a survey of caribou herds, and reindeer herds in the old world as well. Almost all of them are in decline, not only the boreal forest herds, the woodland caribou, but also the migratory herds. There are only a couple of herds in North America that are not declining, an

March 31st, 2015Committee meeting

Prof. Mark Boyce

Environment committee  I guess I can't really show you on the screen very well, but it's a little app. When you click on it, a table comes up asking you to input how many bulls, cows, calves, and unidentified animals you saw during a day hunting in the field, and the number of hours you were hunting on

March 31st, 2015Committee meeting

Prof. Mark Boyce

Environment committee  I believe that we oftentimes do not have sufficient information. We don't necessarily have the research base to make the right management decisions. It goes right across almost all wildlife management. We usually need more information about how to do things well. An example that

March 31st, 2015Committee meeting

Prof. Mark Boyce

Environment committee  It's a very complicated issue. The one I know best is for sage grouse in southeastern Alberta and southwestern Saskatchewan. Sage grouse went from about 2,000 birds in Alberta, 5,000 total Canadian population in 1968, to now when we have 15 males in Alberta and fewer than that on

March 31st, 2015Committee meeting

Prof. Mark Boyce

Environment committee  It is certainly the case that finding a way to work between the federal government and the provincial government on issues of land use planning needs to be a priority. In fact, it is an international priority because we have exactly the same land use change issues happening in th

March 31st, 2015Committee meeting

Prof. Mark Boyce

Environment committee  I think the conservation community is very nervous about SARA because, of course, in 1930 the management of natural resources was allocated to the provinces, and this emergency protective order has us shaking in our boots about a potential challenge to the constitutionality of th

March 31st, 2015Committee meeting

Prof. Mark Boyce

Environment committee  I might point to a particular example. I would disagree that being green doesn't necessarily mean no development and no economy. I would offer as an example the proposed triage system for caribou habitat in Alberta. We have maps showing the net present value of hydrocarbon resou

March 31st, 2015Committee meeting

Prof. Mark Boyce

Environment committee  Absolutely. In fact, one of my research projects that has been a focus for several years has been on access management. This has been happening in the foothills of the east slopes of Alberta. We've worked with Shell and various timber companies to gate roads—in particular, new ro

March 31st, 2015Committee meeting

Prof. Mark Boyce